I. Field
The following description relates generally to interference management in communication systems and more particularly to mitigating the amount of interference in a multiple-input-multiple-output peer-to-peer communication environment.
II. Background
Wireless communication systems are deployed to provide various types of communication, such as voice, data, video, and others. A typical wireless communication system, or network, can provide multiple users access to one or more shared resources. For example, a system can use a variety of multiple access techniques such as Frequency Division Multiplexing (FDM), Time Division Multiplexing (TDM), Code Division Multiplexing (CDM), Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM), and others.
Generally, wireless communication networks are established through a mobile device communicating with a base station or access point. The access point covers a geographic range or cell and, as the mobile device is operated, the mobile device can be moved in and out of these geographic cells. A network can also be constructed utilizing solely peer-to-peer devices without utilizing access points or the network can include both access points (infrastructure mode) and peer-to-peer devices. These types of networks are sometimes referred to as ad hoc networks. Ad hoc networks can be self-configuring whereby when a mobile device (or access point) receives communication from another mobile device, the other mobile device is added to the network. As mobile devices leave the area, they are dynamically removed from the network. Thus, the topography of the network can be constantly changing.
Performance for a wireless communication system can be enhanced by using beamformed transmissions to communicate between devices. Multiple transmit antennas can be used to form beamformed transmissions. Beamformed transmissions, also referred to as beams, typically cover a narrower area than transmissions using a single transmit antenna. A beam can be considered a virtual sector allowing a virtual six-sector system to be generated from a conventional three-sector system, for example. However, the signal to interference and noise ratio (SINR) is enhanced within the area covered by the beams. The communication system can utilize a fixed or predetermined set of beams. Although the fixed beam pattern can be updated or adapted, in contrast to a beam steering system, the beams in a fixed beam system are not dynamically updated based on individual user devices.
In peer-to-peer networks, there is no central scheduler to schedule the communications links to control an amount of interference. Thus, there is a need to manage interference in multiple-input-multiple-output peer-to-peer communication environments.